Iron Maiden's popularity on Spotify

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Invader

When it comes to Spotify Iron Maiden have only 4,138 000 monthly listeners today.
It's quite surprising to me, because they are a band with a huge following globally and I really expected to see their bigger popularity on Spotify.

Top 10 most streamed Maiden tunes on Spotify:
1. Run to the Hills - over 111 million
2. Fear of the Dark - 98.5 million
3. The Trooper - nearly 98 million
4. The Number of the Beast - over 76 million
5. Hallowed be thy Name - 46.5 million
6. 2 Minutes to Midnight - nearly 39 million
7. Wasted Years - 36.5 million
8. Aces High - over 34 million
9. The Wicker Man - 20 million
10. Wasting Love - over 12 million

Academic

I can only speak for myself, but I use Spotify a lot, but never listen to Maiden with it, because of the superior sound quality of my regular MP3s. Same goes for a lot of other bands actually, I mostly use Spotify for when I'm on my netbook or for artists I recently discovered, because I don't have a hi fi system currently and it's pointless to buy CDs this way.

Trooper

Me too, I hardly ever listen to Maiden using Spotify. But I think - the statistics seem to be good, not impressive, but just good for them. IM is the band for metalheads - Metallica, is considered as mega stars of rock and popular music more than "just a metal band". Most of their audiences are the "normal people". Is it kind of demise for Maiden? I don't know - maybe a little. And the another thing - Maiden isn'yt the radio-friendly hitmakers as Metallica or Black Sabbath (Paranoid, Changes). Is just heavy metal band with epic and proggy inclinations.

What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine too

Top 10 most streamed Maiden tunes on Spotify:
1. Run to the Hills - over 111 million
2. Fear of the Dark - 98.5 million
3. The Trooper - nearly 98 million
4. The Number of the Beast - over 76 million
5. Hallowed be thy Name - 46.5 million
6. 2 Minutes to Midnight - nearly 39 million
7. Wasted Years - 36.5 million
8. Aces High - over 34 million
9. The Wicker Man - 20 million
10. Wasting Love - over 12 million

Actually, those are just the most popular songs right now, since there are few songs between Wicker Man and Wasting Love (Speed of Light, Blood Brothers, Afraid to Shoot Strangers) when it comes to total streams. I was very surpriesed to see Wasting Love there at all, because it's really not that popular among fans.

The years just pass like trains

The missing statistic from this discussion (and I’m not sure if it’s even available) is playlists. A lot of people use Spotify for playlists, many of which are curated and followed by a large number of users. Kinda like radio. Just like Maiden were never much of a radio band, they might not be making as many playlist appearances as Motörhead with a song like Ace of Spades. I’m going to guess Wasting Love is on some sort of power ballad playlist, which would explain its presence.

What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine too

The missing statistic from this discussion (and I’m not sure if it’s even available) is playlists. A lot of people use Spotify for playlists, many of which are curated and followed by a large number of users. Kinda like radio. Just like Maiden were never much of a radio band, they might not be making as many playlist appearances as Motörhead with a song like Ace of Spades. I’m going to guess Wasting Love is on some sort of power ballad playlist, which would explain its presence.

I don't care

I know dozens of musicians that would kill for only >4 000 000 listeners monthly

I guess that we should also check other channels like iTunes or Youtube, but these numbers seem ok. Maiden never was a mainstream band (well, maybe their merchandise is well known in mainstream but music is not) so I'm not surprised. And as far as any fan should be concerned - it's about quality, not quantity. I would take Maiden fanbase over any other fanbase out there.